


Snedronningen

by Laine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tales, Future Fic, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 22:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laine/pseuds/Laine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a cold winter night, Sansa tells Jaime a story.</p>
<p>Written for the Tag! Your Ship!  Challenge at LJ's Game of Ships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snedronningen

Sansa’s fingertips are cool as she rakes them over his scalp, again and again and again. Jaime closes his eyes and presses his cheek to her breast, allowing himself to be gentled. In these quiet moments, he finds it easy to forget that Sansa is little more than a child. _A girl, if not a maid._ When she reclines upon her pillows, red hair tumbling over white skin, with ample breasts and patient smiles, she becomes the Mother incarnate, her youth be damned. She opens her arms to him, and he nearly feels ashamed at how willing he is to fall into her embrace.

A book lies open on her lap; she’d been reading when Jaime interrupted her, and he can see red marks on her fingers from where she’d been careless with the wax of the candle at her bedside. He pulls her hand to his mouth and brushes his lips over the spots of lividity. She exhales on a breathy giggle, and he releases her hand before turning his face into her bosom and kissing the spot just above her breastbone where he can feel her rhythmically-thrumming pulse. 

“Would you like me to read to you?” Her voice is quiet and soothing; he purrs his agreement into her skin, and she reaches down to turn the pages of the book. She indulges in her stories under dark of night, with her bedroom door barred and only the light of a single candle to reveal the activity. They’re the fairy tales of old, the ones she no longer believes, the ones Jaime dismissed before Sansa ever drew breath on this earth. Stories of knights and maidens, lords and ladies, princes and princesses...Sansa reads them at a volume scarcely above a whisper, and Jaime keeps his eyes firmly shut as he listens. What they do here is tenuous and delicate as spun sugar, and neither wishes to stare it full in the face, lest they find themselves forced to consider why.

The story Sansa tells tonight comes from a volume of tales from the Old North. Jaime is unfamiliar with these legends, which surprises him; Sansa tends to choose stories they both know well enough to recite in their sleep. But the novelty intrigues him, and so he does not object.

She tells of a boy and a girl, rosy-cheeked and flaxen haired, alike as peas in a pod and always at each other’s side. 

(His stomach clenches, and feels that he will be sick. But he breathes deeply through his nose until the queasiness passes.)

The children discover shards of a demon’s broken mirror, and the shattered glass lodges itself into the boy’s eye until he can no longer see clearly. 

(The candlelight glitters in the smooth plane of Sansa’s mirror, but he will not look, cannot look...)

The boy leaves home and flees for the distant North, where he is welcomed by a beautiful queen in a palace of ice.

(The harsh winter winds rattle Sansa’s windows, the cold forming a crystalline screen over the glass panes.)

The girl searches for her beloved friend, embarking on a perilous journey from which she may never return. 

( _She risks her life for him, she cares for him that much..._ )

She reaches the Snow Queen’s palace and finds the boy, and the power of her love frees him from the mirror’s enchantment. She kisses him, he kisses her, and they leave hand in hand, never to part company again.

Jaime trembles, his teeth chattering together. He glances at the brazier and sees that the coals still burn bright...and yet he cannot keep from shivering. 

Sansa closes the book with a quiet sigh, a sound of penitence. Her white arms coil around him, and she holds Jaime tight; he wraps himself around her body, trying to access whatever warmth he can.

The Queen in the North kisses his brow, and her lips are ice against his skin.


End file.
